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Stating the (not so) obvious

This is a strange, new, and frightening world you have entered. This was not in the plan. Nothing in the baby books or parents evenings told you about this. There is no page for this in the red book.

There are machines which beep; attachments and contraptions; devices, syringes, computers. Some of these we will explain. We will tell you about the machines which go beep and the medicines we give. You will learn more in the next few minutes and hours than you ever thought you could. More than any parent ever wanted to know.

We will try to explain. We will not.

We will forget to state the obvious. We forget that what is obvious to us is a new world to you. Not the medicines and the machines, but the rules that make this little world work.

We will say we have no restrictions on visiting, that you can spend as much time as you like watching your child. But there will be times when we ask you to leave. Sometimes you will know this is coming and we will have time to explain. Sometimes, it will happen in a hurry and we will hustle you out. The minutes will drag on.

When you finally drag yourself away, we will tell you that we will let you know if anything changes. But you will come back and see that the numbers on the machines have changed; there are more syringes than there were an hour ago.

We will tell you that your child needs this level of care. That they need the machines and the syringes and the monitors. Then we will move you to another ward. We will remove the machines and the monitors.

All of this is terrifying. It is our normal. We forget that this is not normal, that our world has different rules that make no sense to anyone else.